<[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> ‹òìN¤N¤N¤N)[email protected] (Sweet Poly
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Organization: PocketU
Subject: Re: "Eyebrown decks the Rancho

.'Zeitgeyser's eyes go wide. He gives a small hiccup and loses his footing - rolling through parallel realities as he tries valiantly to regain a purchace on the steep slope of the Rancho's roof fighting and losing a battle of duality and de ja vu. On one rotatation he's calmly decorating the gables of the roof - keeping a careful eye on Sym who seems to be splitting his attention between the perimeter, which has become crowded all of a sudden, and Z. He rolls through a Kalidescope version of reality populated with young .edus all whining and clammering (not unlike beemice who have not been fed properly for a couple of days, but not near as cute) about gpa's. The next revolution finds him giggling maddly in some outrageously smokey enclosed space, tumbling out into a Christmas tree lot in (Oklahoma??? - nah!) Standing sentry duty as neccessary emergency tree surgery is performed with crude instruments - the operation is a success but he finds it difficult to maintain a straight face. He hides undignified giggles behind his hand in an effort to lend an air of proper formality to the proceedings (he fails miserably). He rolls again (trailing clouds of glory) into an .edu hell. In this reality he is chained to a computer with inadequate memory where he is forced to construct polysylabic jargon by the ream. He pulls a sheaf of pages spewing from a printer gone mad and shoves them 30 and 40 at a time under his cell door. They disappear into a critical void, sounds of hammering and sawing reach him faintly under the door as the deconstruction team goes to work. The next rotation finds him in a strange domestic reality he inhabits with a dog, two rats (gifts), a weasle (on loan from a local first grade), two young boys (begining to suffer the early symptoms of testosterone poisoning) and a lovely woman named M'Lou. They do cheerful battle with demons invoked by the cursed phrases "Some assembly required." and "Batteries not included." in order to please and protect the two testosterone victims until their disease either passes or kills them. He rolls through these packets of reality at an astonishing rate until he finds himself flailing madly in thin air as his akimbo descent finally runs out of roof.

He lands with a muffled thump in a drift just in front of the porch. Scattered about him are strings of now useless Christmas lights, brightly colored reality fragments from assorted universes and his OKB(tm). Zeit shakes his head and gathers up his OKB(tm) (leaving the lights and fragments where they lay in a puddle of multi-hued photons) and trudges up the steps, across the porch and into the warmth of the ranch's parlor.

an encounter with a wizard

> He then pushes his
> lawnmower outside, and punches in a series of codes on its tiny keyboard.
> The lawnmower reconfigures into a floating platform. Eyebrown begins
> making regular trips from shed to platform, piling it high with objects.
>
> He grabs the handle and tows the platform down the wide and clear path, and
> across the Lawn. He pauses briefly at the meta-metaphor and fiddles with
> its controls. It emits a deep thrum and brightens. Up on the Porch, the
> Christmas lights he had strung earlier also brighten, then flatten,
> becoming glowing red and green snowflake shapes that conform to the
> surfaces underneath. Eyebrown tows his platform onto the Porch, past the
> crowd of noisy punks, through the door and into Poly's pantry.

Zeit catches a wisp of conversation from the pantry over the general hubbub.

> "Eyebrown! What are you doing here? I thought you were unstuck in time.
> Is this last week or something?"

He understands. Zeit shudders as he recalls his recent n-dimensional tumble from the roof.

> Eyebrown takes a seat, pours himself a cup of tea and grabs a brownie.
> "Source fixed it. I can sense the flow again." He takes a bite. "Mmmph
> blrtle grbbthh." He swallows. "I mean, I brought some presents for the
> punks. I wonder if you could distribute them. They seem to be
> preoccupied." He gestures to the wall, through which loud grating music
> punctuated by screams of evil glee could be heard.
>
> "Certainly. What have you got?"

eyebrown's largess

> "Zeitgeyser gets a doctorate.

(Faintly, across dimensional membranes and over the general roar of punks having a good time the sounds of deconstruction cease briefly and hooded figures declare that "Chapter Six appears to be minimally adequate, with a few minor revisions ....) Zeit glows with appreciation at the sentiment. His point flushes. Thanks.

"Uh I've got a few things too." He says shyly. He hands eyebrown a small filigreed box of ivory. It has the intitials "G. E." hand-carved on the lid. "It's just some dust, but the guy I got it from assures me it knows what to do with itself."


> And this is for Gene." He carefully places an
> autosurgical neurojack kit on the floor. "He seems to be on the move right
> now. I'm not supposed to hand these out. Gibson Inc. (TM) is withholding
> them from the market until the net grows up. But I figure that we just
> can't do without Gene. This will allow him to stay in contact no matter
> where he is." He places a small jar next to the kit. "That's some
> cleanser for Ed's halo. It's been getting pretty tarnished lately."

"This is sorta low-tech but I think Gene will appreciate it and it'll come in hand in the spring when the weather gets better and he can use it at his roadside stand." Zeit carefully sets two decks of cards - one deck of Uno and one deck of Skip-Bo - on the mantle to await Gene's arrival. "They're hand-marked! Don't tell Ed." Z says proudly.

> He pulls off a large flat box. "This is for Lisa. It's a chainmail
> evening gown made from bits of hammered, paperthin human bone--gathered
> from Sym's victims. She seems to have somewhat, ah, medieval tastes."
> Next to it he puts a mason jar containing a dark thick substance that moves
> unpleasantly. "That's for Sym. I don't want to tell you what it is."
> Eyebrown shudders and pushes the jar toward the back with his foot.

Z sets a long thin package on top of the box from eyebrown. It's wrapped in matte black paper with a small red bow tied just under the rounded bulge at one end. "It's a walking stick with a silver bust of Sym for a handle. Tell her to be sure to read the instructions before she uses it. I wouldn't want her to hurt herself." Zeit rummages breifly in the OKB(tm) and comes up with two small baggies containing PB&B sandwiches and a small jar of of extra spicey Thai peanut sauce to dip them in, and a small box containing a jade stud which he stacks neatly near the jar eyebrown had handled so carefully. "Just a little holiday peace offering."

more holiday gift-giving

> "For you Poly, I have something special." Eyebrown whistles and a languid
> shape stands up and bounds off the platform. "It's an archidaemon, so you
> can reconfigure the Rancho into anything you want at any time. Watch.
> Arch, the fireplace." The daemon stares sullenly for a moment, then
> slouches over to the fireplace. It grabs the mantle and gives it a tug.
> The entire fireplace folds and refolds on itself in a flickering motion.
> Finally the daemon steps back. The fireplace was still a fireplace, but it
> had become a complex multi-leveled chrome and flat black construction that
> resembled a brick fireplace the way a table saw resembled a stone axe. As
> they watch, a sphincter on an interior wall dilates, a log extrudes and
> drops onto one of the middle frames, then instantly bursts into flame.
>
> "The daemon can do anything structural." Eyebrown gestures and the daemon
> backs up and leans against the wall with an insolent sneer. "It's got kind
> of an attitude, though. I didn't get all the bugs out.

"Where's Nesta?" Z is waving something bright orange. "I got him a a beret. I can't really wear stuff like this but I bet he can pull it off." The beret has a Pentium processor chip where the rank symbol usually goes.

Zeit rummages some more and pulls out a small square book with a mother-of-pearl cover that gleams softly as the light hits it. "It's not much. Just something to record stories in." He thumbs the small lock and opens it. Inside there is a dimond encrusted stylus and a flatscreen display. "The lock is keyed to you and it's got lots of memory. I hope you'll share some of them with us." He hands the book to Poly.

> "But what about Sourcerer?" asks Poly, waving at the almost-empty platform.
> The only thing remaining is a small book. "I already gave Source his
> present." says eyebrown. "I don't think you'll have to worry about the
> beemice in the chimney any more."

Getting Source's present out required some effort but with some struggle Z manages to pull out a device that is waaay too big for the OKB(tm). It looks like one of those electric shopping carts in the supermarkets for elderly ...uh ...um chronologically challenged shoppers, except this has a a totally enclosed basket whose wire mesh gleams electronically and a very large chrome-plated hot rod engine (327 short-block) looking thingy where the battery would ordinarily go. "It's a search engine!" Zeit declares proudly.

> The door opens and a little girl peeks in. Eyebrown smiles at her and she
> tentatively walks into the room. She stops, looking at the pile of
> presents. "B-b-b-but what about *me*?" The little girl's face begins to
> cloud over and she stamps her feet.
>
> "Now, now," says eyebrown, "I've got the most special present of all for
> you." He takes the book from the platform and hands it to her. She opens
> it. The pages are blank. "Where's the story?"
>
> "It's a magic book. When you're alone, watch the pages very carefully and
> you'll see pictures. It will tell you the most amazing stories you ever
> heard. And these will be the best stories of all--stories that *you* put
> there."
>
> The little girl looks intently at a blank page. There is a tiny flash and
> a landscape dimly appears then vanishes. The little girl crawls behind the
> tree next to the reconfigured fireplace and curls herself into a ball,
> gazing with rapt attention at the blank pages.

"And I have just the thing to go with it." Z pulls a small nib from his pocket and thumbs a stud at it's tip. A bright plume of Ostrich feather blooms at his touch. "I know there's space in that book for your own stories so here's something to put them down with. It uses mutable ink and will write on any surface and in any symbolic set you choose. BTW you and Poly can share stories. The books are compatable. Remember words are like music - they're no fun unless you share them"

> "Keep your eye on that book, Poly. Someday it's going to amaze us all.

an emotional display that could be contagious

Z bends back over his OKB(tm) to pull out another offering but slips and rolls into another reality - .edu hell - he is still chained to the computer. He sighs. Chapter 7 - Conclusions stares out at him from the screen. Grimly he begins to type again, but there is a warm glow leaking into his soul from the trans-dimensional parlor at Poly's place. Somehow that makes it all worth while. He glances surrepetitiously down the row at the other monkeys chained to their word processors as he continues to type.

Life is good! (or will be soon)

**********************************************************************
Zeitgeyser - the Old Faithful of pop culture

"Unity is always at least two"
(Buckminster Fuller)

The trouble with anarchy is that it
ALWAYS degenerates into government (me, heehee)
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